POULTRY. 45 



POULTRY. 



The show of Poultry this year was not up to that made in former 

 years, either in point of numbers or quality. This fact the Committee 

 very much regret. There were but fifty fowls, of all species, present- 

 ed for inspection, and of such quality that your Committee's awards 

 were made rather to encourage the public spirit of the exhibitors than 

 as a compliment to the intrinsic merits of the exhibited. It is hardly 

 a mitigation of the Committee's disappointment to believe that this 

 show did not begin to do justice to the actual poultry product of this 

 region. A genuine and healthy interest in our exhibitions is the want 

 we all have to deplore, and that interest can only be kept alive and on 

 the increase among the faithful few who believe in the thing and jus- 

 tify their faith by works, by persisting to " let their light shine." 



We firmly believe that in giving our influence to encourage the im- 

 provement of Poultry, we are contributing largely to the support of 

 the agricultural interest of the State. Unfortunately, there are not, 

 so far as we know, reliable general statistics existing to show what is 

 the proportion which poultry bears to the other farm products of the 

 Commonwealth, but it is believed that neither producers or consum- 

 ers, are fully aware of the magnitude of the interest and product. 

 The demand for both the meat and eggs of fowls, is steady, and the 

 supply is never in excess of it. There is no branch of the farmer's 

 interest where science can be applied with better pecuniary results than 

 poultry raising. We believe that all failures are traceable either to 

 blindly divorcing nature from science, or to a non-application of sci- 

 ence in the management of fowls. 



All developments of permanent value are only possible by conform- 

 ing to the special law of the quadruped or biped sought to be improved. 

 We think our poultry men would do well to observe closely the law of 

 nature in even the feeding of poultry. Let them not lose sight of the 

 fact that the fowl is physically constituted to live on whoh grains, and 

 that to ignore or disregard this necessity of the fowl, is to invite failure 

 in some, if not in many points. All domestic fowls require green 

 herbage, and if deprived of it for any considerable time they inevitably 

 decline. Hens, during the laying period, require animal substance in 

 some form, and it is absurd to expect a good crop of eggs unless this 

 condition is supplied. In the agricultural papers we find a good deal 



